Ceci n'est pas une food blog

It seems that besides my best intentions to write about food, other things in my life are consistently more interesting fodder than letting you know we are changing our duck preparation to Creole spiced Liberty Farm duck breast with dirty rice risotto.

Those of you who have done logic problems with statements like Peter is taller than Fred but shorter than Mike, and Fred has red hair, by which you are supposed to figure out how tall each guy is and what color hair he has, might be able to follow the following genealogy.

You may remember I have a bunch of Mayans working for me. You may remember one of them came to me recently with unpleasant revelations about his wife. The players are a father/son team, C. Jr and C. Sr. Sr washes dishes and Jr is a talented line cook. We then have C Sr's brother-in-law A who washes dishes. We also have C Jr's cousin L. (whose brother J. used to work for us and is currently in jail in San Rafael after being busted with cocaine), and C Jr's other cousin W. who is also L.'s brother-in-law (L being married to W's sister). Confused? I thought so.

L is the one with the wayward wife who needed to take some time off to spend with his son. He and his son stopped by 2 days ago with a gift for our new boy. They both looked happy and it was clear as it always is how devoted the boy is to his dad.

Yesterday L called me to tell me his wife had gone to the school, lied to the teacher that the boy had a doctor's appointment and then she, her brother-in-law W and his girlfriend went to L's house and took all the boy's clothes. When L called the police he was told there was nothing he could do because his wife was the one who took the stuff. She evidently then went to a local organization that helps people extricate themselves from difficult situations. L had gone there a month and half ago asking for help in his dilemma with his wife, and got no help. Yesterday, they told him he can't see his son. So evidently they don't help all people, just women. Which is fine, but they need to be clear about that in the community. The GM had been asked to join their board but with a new child she wasn't sure about timing. She's now giving it a little more thought.

He had called me because he needed help with court paperwork. Unfortunately I wasn't around all day because my mother-in-law is in town and we were visiting with her. When I did reach him, he said he figured out the paperwork and they are supposed to appear in court today at 1:30. I told him I would stop by the organization's offices this morning to see if I could find out a little more about what's happening.

Now I am not eager to hop into a domestic dispute. Being in that situation never turns out well and I only know his side of the story which is his wife doesn't take very good care of the child or the home. This is corroborated by other people I know and neither the GM or I have a good feeling about the wife. I'm relatively sure L is not physically abusive with either his wife or child but anything is possible. So I do want to help L without getting too entangled in his drama.

Where my problem lies is with W. He's really good at his job. He learns quickly and is eager to take on new tasks. When he is at work he's pleasant and easy to get along with. His morals however are troublesome. He was a police officer in Mexico and freely admits to being corrupt. He has a wife and at least one child (I'm not clear if he has others with other women, I think so) in Mexico and lives with his girlfriend and step-child here. I have heard that unlike many other Mexicans working here he's not doing much in the providing for his family back home department. I have also heard he's planning on leaving his girlfriend to go home to Mexico. I told him if he planned on leaving, please do it after Labor Day weekend and please don't do it until I had someone trained to take his place. He and his girlfriend are perpetually breaking up and getting back together and I'll believe he's leaving when I go to work and he's not there.

L is really upset that W helped take his son's belongings. W is working tonight. I'm not sure what, if anything to say to him. It's definitely not my problem but I doubt the evening will pass without remarking on the situation.

People's personal conduct is always a dilemma for me as an employer. On the one hand what people do on their own time is none of my business. On the other, I'd be uncomfortable if one of my employees was say, a Klan member. I feel like by not letting people know how I feel about their conduct, I'm tacitly supporting their behavior, whether it's seeing the active alcoholic engage their disease or the sexual peccadilloes of another when their boyfriend is out of town. Not that I have much moral ground to stand on. I've done my share and then some of actions which run counter to my morals. But I'm not sure how much of their actions I take on when I am silent. I can't fire someone for being a Republican but I don't have to be quiet about letting them know they're misguided.

So, I'll sally forth into Labor Day. We've got a leg of lamb, a ribeye and some pork belly coming in. The 3 day weekends are sometime a crapshoot for us. Much of our clientele is local and they tend to hide when the out of towner's descend en masse. So we end up being just slightly busier than normal and wind up with a lot of food to use up. The good news is that the locals usually come out on Monday and Tuesday so we do good numbers for those days. This year though we've been up 5% from last year and we were busy last year. I think we may set a record this weekend.

Next weekend we've got a big charity event where we have to give away a lot of food. I'm still trying to think of what we'll serve. I'm thinking about some sort of vegetable dessert involving tomatoes and candied corn.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I feel like I'm reading a soap opera installment (if soap operas involved duck breast and dirty rice and candied corn)...

Sounds like quite a pickle. Always disappointing when parent is denied the right to see their child, especially when the issue of "fault" has yet to be determined.

Hang in there!

[Catherine]

Wow. I am intrigued by the moral quandary you are in. I'm not sure if you're asking for or even accepting advice, so here is my (possibly unsolicited) two cents: You like W and want him to continue to work for you. That much you made clear. You don't approve of his actions outside work. To me, that is where that disapproval belongs - outside work. If you don't want to get involved in the drama anymore than you have, don't.

You are already doing what you can to help L, which shows him (and W) whom you support. It also speaks for itself in terms of your own moral compass. If W is doing a great job at work and is showing up on time and all that jazz, unless he asks you what you think of his involvement in the situation, I don't think you should volunteer it.

Anyway, hope Labor Day weekend is great on all fronts.

[meloukhia]

I am very familiar with the organization of which you speak, and, alas, it's true, it tends to be selective about which people involved in difficult situations it assists.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with all of this right before a major holiday weekend. That always seems to be when the fecal material starts to fly, eh?

[johng]

huh....

I woulda thunk it was "un food blog."

[F. S. Blair]

Just to toss my two pennies into the circle...

Do what you can to help and support L, but don't become a Spec4-style 'advisor' in the zerozone between him and W. It can be hard to do- something I'm all too well aware of- but it's the only reasonable course of action, I think- getting actively involved in the potential skirmish between the two of them not only makes you a direct party to it (a bad thing to be, in domestic ugliness such as this), but choosing sides in a drama you don't fully understand also puts you in precarious straits with the rest of the Mayans, I would think, and may damage the existing rapport. Not to mention, it can seem insulting and presumptuous to see a relative outsider take an active role in an insular affair.

Supporting L, without condemning W, however, shows that you care, and serves as an example that they can come to you, without putting your ass on the line or harshing your credibility.

Or at least, that's my take on it.

- Scott

[haddock]

Thanks all for the advice and to be clear part of why I keep this blog is to solicit advice. Things which are clear to me are sometimes not so clear to others and being in this somewhat remote area it is hard to steer clear of tunnel vision.

I am essentially trying to not choose sides, except the side of the child. It's clear both mom and dad are not behaving well with each other, although I have direct experience with at least one of them putting the child's needs foremost. In this situation however, the child will be the loser.

My moral dilemma with W. is not so much the issue as just the dilemma of what my employees actions say about my business. This is a small town and repercussions can be deep. Yes, I know that what people do on their time is precisely that, but if an employee is rude to someone at the bank, I've probably lost a customer. In a larger area things are a little more anonymous. So, I worry how outside actions effect my livelihood.

and johng: I'm not up on my genders. Does the blog reflect the gender of the writer, or is blog itself a masculine noun? I was just cribbing from Magritte.

[Sal]

I worked once for a company that was writing software for a large open pit mine up in the back of by-gosh northern Canada.

We're talking BIG TRUCKS, BIG SHOVELS and guys out in the middle of nowhere with few women and with guns.

One of the things we had to track in the software that assigned which truck was sent to which shovel was which employee was feuding with which other employee(s) over one of the women -- or whatever else was worth feuding about -- on site.

Guns, eh?

I hope your kitchen stays sane through all of this. It's got to be tough on all involved to be seeing each other at work. Your loyalties are torn. I can't even imagine what Sr. and the rest of them are feeling through all this.

I think you should be writing specs for Fox Network.

[meloukhia]

Ceci n'est pas une blog de cuisine?

It's rough living in a small town: everyone talks about everyone else, not always truthfully, and you are constantly representing the company you work for, whether in Harvest Market, staggering drunkenly around Dicks, or being involved in a custody dispute. It's a little unnerving to more or less always be at work, even when clearly out of uniform and off the clock.

Someone's always got their eye on you.

I hope this weekend has been good to you guys.

[johng]

haddock, my french is basic at best, but yes, the adjective takes the gender of the noun it describes, and a blog is, for unknown reasons, masculine, as you can see here: http://closdesfees.aquaray.com/dotclear/index.php